Route Recon

Welcome to the Blog

Welcome to the PitStopper.net blog! Here you'll find tips for planning better routes, stories from the community, feature announcements, and guides to help you get the most out of your adventures. Whether you're bikepacking across continents or planning a local day hike, we've got something for you.

The Tour's Greatest Climbs: Where to Stop for a Break

December 31, 2026 Scheduled 11 min read

Features Route Recon

We measured all ten most iconic Tour de France climbs using BRouter, then searched OpenStreetMap for cafés, restaurants, water, and shelter within 200 metres of the road. Real data - no estimates. Some climbs are thick with stops, others are thin on the ground.
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Down the South Island: Planning a Camper-van or Motorcycle Tour

August 8, 2026 6 min read

Route Recon Tutorials

Camper-van or motorbike, the job is the same: where do we sleep, where do we fuel up, where do we shop? Here is a full-length South Island tour going from a bare BRouter track to a printable campsite shortlist - then back later for fuel and supermarkets.
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Where Do You Sleep on the Indian Pacific?

August 1, 2026 6 min read

Features Route Recon

Fremantle to the Sydney Opera House: 5,468 km, 34,600 m of climbing, and the emptiest roads in world cycling. We surveyed every place to sleep within 2 km of the old Indian Pacific Wheel Race course. With a credit card, the worst night gap is 370 km. With a tent, it drops to 147 km - and that stretch has a name you already know.
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Two Nights Around Mont Blanc: Mapping Darkness on the 2026 UTMB

July 25, 2026 8 min read

Features Route Recon

The UTMB's aid stations are handled. What the roadbook doesn't tell you: where night actually catches YOU. We mapped sunset, sunrise, 17 refuges and 24 shelters against a mid-pack pace - headtorches on halfway up Grand Col Ferret.
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The 99 Index: Every Ice Cream Stop on the London to Brighton

July 20, 2026 5 min read

Features Route Recon

The organisers of the 13 September London to Brighton Cycle promise water stops and toilets. They say nothing about ice cream. So we loaded the route into PitStopper, set the search radius down to 50 metres, and counted every freezer you will pass without leaving the road: 54 shops, garages and bakeries, plus a handful of actual gelato counters. The catch is where they are - and where they very much are not.
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Chasing the Sunset in the Land of the Rising Sun

July 18, 2026 8 min read

Features Route Recon

Chase The Sun is coming to Japan: sunrise over Tokyo Bay on 29 May 2027, sunset over Suruga Bay, around 210 km and 3,000 m of mountains in between. The official route stays secret until autumn - so we drew a plausible one and surveyed it. Directly on the roadside of our guess: 129 konbini, one every 1.8 km. On average. The mountains have other ideas.
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One Lap of Spa: What's Within a Kilometre of the F1 Belgian Grand Prix?

July 18, 2026 5 min read

Features Route Recon

A racetrack is just a 7 km loop with opinions, so we loaded Spa into PitStopper like any other route. OSM's mappers have been busy: fan tunnels under Raidillon, every spectator tap and toilet, the paddock parking - all pinned to the lap.
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The North Race: 24 Hours, There and Back, and a Night With No Open Shops

July 11, 2026 7 min read

Features Route Recon

Noon to noon, Leeds to as-far-north-as-your-legs-allow. Our 472 km plan reaches Scotland by headtorch - and between a Spar at 19:47 and a corner shop that opens at 05:00, the model says there is nothing open for over nine hours.
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Race Around Québec 2026: Planning 1,000 km of Resupply, One Day at a Time

July 4, 2026 5 min read

Features Route Recon

Unsupported means the shops ARE your support crew. We split the Race Around Québec's 1,000 km route into five days and mapped all 732 resupply points - from Montréal's block-by-block dépanneurs to the Laurentian day with five fuel stops in 203 km.
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Six Hundred Taps: Water-Planning a 4,914 km Transcontinental in One Search

June 27, 2026 7 min read

Features Route Recon

The Transcontinental is the gold standard of self-supported long-distance cycling. We loaded a full 4,914 km crossing - Santiago de Compostela to Constanța - and searched for drinking water. Within twenty metres of the wheel: 283 taps. Within a hundred: 662, one every 7.4 km on average - except for one 500 km stretch where the map goes almost silent.
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Lloyds Tour of Britain Pub Crawl: Every Pub Within 100 m of the 2026 Route

June 20, 2026 15 min read

Features Route Recon

Five stages, 910 km, 171 pubs within 100 metres of the race line. We mapped the Lloyds Tour of Britain Men 2026 pub by pub - including which ones have a 5-star hygiene rating for your mid-ride pie.
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Detour de France: The Castles Beside the 2026 Tour de France Route

June 13, 2026 4 min read

Features Route Recon

Forget the water bottles - what if you followed the 2026 Tour de France for the scenery? We counted the castles, forts and ancient sites beside every stage. It's château all the way down.
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